Nationalism in the Congo

...There was already a hint of this at the Accra All-African Peoples Conference in December 1958...

...It may be that as the Congolese work toward the political independence which has been promised them, and even after they have attained it, they may forge some link with Belgium which will enable them to continue receiving Belgian technological advice and assistance...

...Some Belgians also claim that this is a bigger wage tba,n that earned by many working-class whites in the Belgian homeland itself...

...The fact is that, stimulated by the rapid advance of Africans throughout the continent, their Congolese brothers have grown up rather faster than the Belgians bargained for...

...They also banned the Abako movement and arrested its leaders, who now face charges of inciting racial hatred and causing breaches of the peace...

...And they were on the eve of announcing further political reforms when events overtook them and the Congo exploded in tragic rioting...

...Belgian policy has been to press ahead with economic development, while soft-pedalling political advancement...

...Partly, this immunity has been due to tbe impressive material benefits which Belgian initiative has brought to the Congolese—the Congo's African peoples...

...Whether the Congolese and the Belgians can work out new political arrangements in concord and amity remains to be seen...

...The time has already come of which a former Belgian Governor-General, Leo Petillon, spoke when he said that the Congolese would one day cease saying to the Belgians, "You are my father," and would assert, "You are my brother...

...The Belgians put down the outbreak swiftly, using police, troops and Belgian paratroopers from the Congo's big military base at Kamina...

...Center of the outbreak was the capital, Leopoldville, where 71 fatalities—all African—were announced by the Belgians, as well as more than 200 Africans injured...

...Many Congolese have been earning $100 a month—a lordly sum compared with the $15 a month earned by South African mine laborers...

...They compel employers to pay housing allowances when houses are not provided for a company's workers...

...As the Belgians themselves hasten to point out, a contributory cause of the riots may have been unrest among several thousand unemployed Africans in Leopoldville...

...It was perhaps because of this that the Belgian Government never encouraged white settlement in the Congo, accepting only the necessary minimum of key technicians and specialists...

...Officials conveyed the impression that their object was to build up such a fund of goodwill between Belgians and Congolese that Belgian economic interests in the Congo would always remain safe even if Africans assumed political control...

...Both whites and non-whites are ruled by a resident Governor-General wielding extensive powers from Brussels...

...Previously isolated from the pan-African nationalist movement, the Congolese sent as a delegate Patrick Lumumba, President of the "Mouvement National Congolais," a loose association of various African political groups...

...But however obscure the future, of one thing there is no doubt...

...The Belgians had, indeed, already started moving in the direction of political concessions, in the form of local African elections...

...Thus, from the vast profits they have made from mining the Congo's copper, uranium, diamonds, silver, lead and gold, and from exploiting its other immense resources, the Belgians have constantly plowed back a margin of profit to raise African living standards...

...The Belgians have put more than one million African children into schools...

...Five years after we turn out our first law student," a Belgian once told me, "we can say good-by to political control...

...In the great copper-smelting works at Elisabethville, I saw an African not far removed from primitive tribal life maneuvering into position with great skill a giant ladle brimming with $50,000 worth of red-hot molten copper...

...However, it was not brought about solely by the Congo violence, for rumors of a statement on the Congo's political future had been circulating for some while in advance...

...and Elisabethville have enjoyed good housing, and medical and other social services...

...Many realistic Belgians had faced this fact and admitted in private conversation their conviction that Africans ultimately would seek political control of the Congo...

...Consequently, the Congolese drawn to the modern new cities like Leopoldville JOHN HUGHES covers South Africa for the Christian Science Monitor...

...Yet all these new skills, the economic horizons which have suddenly opened up and extensive schooling inevitably led to political stirrings...

...And if political rights have been withheld from the Congo's 13 million Africans, they have also been denied the Congo's 100,000 whites...

...What is evident now is that the tide of African nationalism is no longer passing the Congo by...

...Even so, an air of tension and uncertainty hangs over lie area, and the end of the story is far from clear...

...Even so, there seems little doubt that there was a distinct political motivation to the riots and that the Belgians had for once completely failed to judge the true temper of the Congolese...

...Within a few days, Brussels announced a "new deal" for the Congo, promising direct elections, the opening of all posts in the government service to Africans, and the growth, through local councils, of a kind of skeleton parliament...

...Falling world prices of such metals as copper have set the Congo back somewhat in recent months and have given rise to unemployment...

...But Africans are not barred from skilled work on account of color, and though their wages may be lower than the white man's, they nevertheless are substantially higher than wages paid to Africans in countries nearby...

...King Baudouin himself broadcast a pledge that Belgium would lead the Congo to independence—though not too precipitately...

...Race riots, stimulated by unemployment and pan-Africanism, disrupt progressive Belgian administration and focus attention on self-government plans NATIONALISM IN THE CONGO By John Hughes CAPE TOWN THE CONGO, Belgium's rich possession in central Africa, has beejn suddenly and swiftly engulfed by the pace of events in this continent...

...Vicious African riots in the Congo capital of Leopoldville and the port of Matadi have been followed by sweeping promises from Brussels of political reform and ultimate independence...

...Certainly, the value of a complete Belgian exodus at this stage is difficult to see, for although Africans have made rapid strides it is doubtful whether there are sufficient key men among them to run the mines and manage, for example, the nuclear reactor—first in Africa—which is being set up in Leopoldville...

...They point with pride to the social centers, sportsfields, cinemas and clinics they have built for Africans...

...True, there is considerable disparity between wages paid to whites and non-whites...

...The trouble started at a prohibited meeting of the Abako (Association du- Bas-Kongo) movement, the political organization mainly behind increasing agitation for political rights among the Congolese in recent months...

...Thus Africans have been taught to captain the steamboats plying the Congo's tricky waterways, to drive the big electric railway looomotives and to strip aircraft engines...

...Whether the outbreak in Leopoldville induced the Belgians to go further in this program than they had originally intended, is not known...

...Lumumba startled the gathering with his cry: "Vive l'independence Congolaise, vive l'Afrique Independante...

...The upheaval is particularly dramatic, for from the political point of view the Congo has long been the sleeping princess of Africa, immune to the turmoil characterizing the onward march of black African nationalism elsewhere...